A finish and a start!

I've been trying to complete the baby quilt for my cousin April's first grandbaby, and last night (well....3:30 this morning!) I finally finished it!  YAY!


And we even had a sunny day for photos......woohoo!

I'm just thrilled with how it turned out!  It is so close to the pic that April had said "I want THAT quilt," so I think she'll be really pleased.  The quilting was done in just slightly irregular lines all the way across.....but I'll tell ya......straight lines are the devil!  I can so quickly do a swirl with feathers hanging off of it.....but ask me to quilt a straight line, and OY, things slow down to a crawl!  It's just not my first choice of a quilting pattern.....but I think it really works on this quilt.


And yeah, it's an oversized baby quilt, about 50x65......plenty big to have it for the big-boy bed later!


And now for the start that I mentioned in the post title.


A little while ago, Barb from Fun with Barb blog posted that she (and a few of her friends) were going to make a Jubilee quilt to commemorate them turning 50 this year!  So, along with Lori from Humble quilts, I'm joining in on the fun!  Are you turning 50 this year?  Want to join in!?!  Come on!  It'll be great to have a quilt that you made just for you....just what you really like....so you can look at it and say, "That's all about me....me me me....YAY, me at 50!"  lol


So I was trying to decide what quilt to make for it.....cuz there are hundreds that I want to make, and then it hit me!  You know my favorite color is orange, so it hit me that those orange creamsicle ice cream bars were always called 50/50 bars......so, of course, I need to make a two-color quilt with orange and white!  Gotta do it!  My own 50/50 for my 50th!  Yay!


And I was wanting to make a certain quilt from the Red & White show from the second I saw it, so that's going to be the one I'll do!

I'm so excited!  Can't wait to get started!


And I had no idea that 'Jubilee' had a biblical reference......but Lori found this.....

Leviticus 25:10
Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you.

I like that a lot!

Let's rejoice that we are turning 50 this year!!!!


regan

A sewing day! Yay!

I'm spending this whole day sewing.....ok..... and movie watching!  But only because the Netflix needed to go back!  And by the way, the Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon is pretty good.  But tough to sew to, because you kindof really need to watch it!  Dang!  I like the movies that you can just listen too mostly, so I can sew at the same time!  Oh well, those will be later!

But sewing did get done......here is the latest on my Florabunda progress!  Woohoo!  I'm really loving these blocks!

I'd like it to be about a queen size, so I have 33 more blocks to make!  I'm over the half-way point!  Yay!  But I've only worked on it as a kindof filler between projects.  I kitted up a bunch of the blocks a while back, and I just finished sewing them yesterday.  I need to kit up a bunch more now, and then they'll be ready when I have a few minutes (or a day!) to sew them up!  I just love the yellow and all the beautiful blossoms that peek out here and there.  I didn't realize I had so many big florals in my stash.....who knew!  And.....why did I even buy them, other than I liked them.  Thank goodness Bonnie Hunter came up with this plan.....or they'd still be sitting in the stack of "Why on earth did I buy this print!?!"

My 'real' project is finishing up the baby quilt for our cousin April's 1st grandson.  I have the top finished, but was stumped on the batt to use.  I really wanted it to have a more sleek, modern look, but my usual 100% cotton batts always give me the crinkled/puckered/antiquey look that I love.  But that just wasn't in my head for this quilt.  And I really didn't want to use a poly batt......just not my thing.  So I figured to make a few samples of different batts and see what happened.

The two larger pieces are from a Fairfield 80/20 batt, one piece I prewashed, and the other I didn't.  Can you see a difference?.......Me neither!  The smaller piece is Warm & Natural.......and is only slightly more puckered than the other two.  I drew registration marks on all of them, so I could measure the shrinkage, and the two 80/20's still shrank the same amount, even though one was prewashed AND shrunk in the dryer!  What the heck!  So, even though my brilliant batt test was a total failure.....it left me with the decision to just use the dang 80/20 and get it done!  If it puckers and crinkles a bit, fine!  It's a quilt, dang it, not a marble statue!  lol

And the stripey quilting on the test samples is the same kind of quilting for the baby quilt......it's what was in the original pic, and April really liked the simplicity of it!  Yay!  Not perfectly straight lines, about 3/4" apart.....easy peasy!  We love that!

Ok......back to the sewing room!  I have to seam the back of the baby quilt (it's 50ish by 65ish......a nice BIG baby quilt) and get to the town office to pin baste it.

Oh yeah......I was just on a blog the other day......so sorry I can't remember where......but she had a YouTube of Sharon Schamber's table top basting method......and it's brilliant!  I just need to get to the hardware store for some molding pieces, and I will never have a basting-backache again!  Yay!  If you haven't seen this method, here are the links to it.  It is a two parter, so make sure you watch both videos.

Sharon Schamber's 'Hand Basting a Quilt' Part 1

Sharon Schamber's 'Hand Basting a Quilt' Part 2

Ok......I can hear Jane Eyre calling from the sewing room......gotta go!  And yeah, that would be the Jane with Ciaran Hinds......he is SO good!  Here's a little glimpse......

Jane Eyre.....the goodbye scene.....with Ciaran Hinds and Samantha Morton

Ok.....NOW I'm really going to sew!  lol

Have a great day!  Don't spend it all on YouTube!  Ha!

regan

2012! Woohoo!

Here it is the middle of January, and this is my first post of the year!  Holy cow....how did that happen!?!

Well......I've been sick again!  And I was thinking this was very familiar, so I looked at my Jan 2011 posts, and yeah.....I was sick then, too!  What the hell!?!  I even called out of work last week......I NEVER do that!  And spent the whole day in bed, not even the couch!  Yep....sick!

I'm feeling better now......but that dragging feeling is still lingering!  Just suck it up, and move on, right!?!  :o)

So, I have been quilting, but not much......nothing to show, cuz I haven't taken any pics.....hopefully in a few days.  I've got the baby quilt top done, but am still figuring on the batting.  I talked with the gals at our quilt group, and I'm going to make a few small quilt sandwiches to see how the different battings behave when washed.  I need for this baby quilt to be fairly flat after washing, not crinkled and puckered like I usually like my quilts to look.  This baby quilt needs to have that 'polished, smooth, modern' look to it, so the puckers might be too much.  Of course, I haven't done this yet, so hopefully this week I can get to it!

What I DID get to today was .......just like this time last year.......I booked another cruise!  Woohoo!  Could it be because it was only 2 degrees out this morning when I woke up????  Hmmmmm!

Hubby and I are going on Royal Caribbean in March/April to the Western Caribbean, porting in Cozumel and Puerta Costa Maya, Mexico.  5 fun filled days out of Tampa, where we'll get to stay and visit with our cousins, April and Drew (yep, same April that the quilt is for!).  By then, the baby will be born, so we'll get to see the little peanut, too!  Yay!

I'm so excited I could just bust!  :o)

And I still need to book the excursions, but the plan is to take the Xrail dune buggy drive through the jungle, to the Jade Caverns, take a little swim, and drive back out!  A totally mud-splattered fun kind of day!  Yay!  If you're wondering what it really is.....here's a link to a blog from a gal that was just there!  Fun!

http://www.andherlittledogtoo.com/2010/12/our-xrail-tour-in-cozumel-mexico.html

Of course, one of the excursions was to do a zip line, and we were totally jazzed about doing it, but then we saw a video about the exact one we would be on.....and it's nothing like what we want!  We want to be that Geico Pig on the zip line!  Have you seen that little guy!  Too damned cute!  Wee wee weeeeeee!  HA!  Check out the link below........love the little pig feet dancing in the air, and the little snort......pinwheels!  HA!

GEICO Pig on a Zip line video! Too funny!

Ok.......I'm laughing too damned hard now to be able to type!

Hope you all have a great week!

Wee wee weeeeeeeee!

regan